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may be the best-known children's author / illustrator in the world today. His artwork has become somewhat of an American icon; some even became the basis of an advertising campaign for Bell Atlantic. This extremely gifted genius was actually cultivating wit ....

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.... He attempted to read what he called "real books" even when he was a young child; he felt it was an embarrassment even to enter the childrens' section of the library. Sendak writes the type of books he wished he had as a child; entertaining stories which are not limited by any effort to make things so simple for children that they become mundane. Sendak's greatest influence as a writer was his father. Phillip Sendak was a wonderfully creative storyteller who amazed Maurice and his brother and sister. "He didn't edit," remarks Maurice in an interview with Marion Long. "It's funny, because that's what I'm accused of now: being a storyteller who ....